I've been working on revising the book for the upcoming 5th edition (which will be out on Opening Day). Thought I'd share a few of these EveryCubEver entries with you while I worked...
Mike Kelly 1857--1894 (White Stockings 1880-1886)
King Kelly was famous for his running and hitting (he invented or at least
perfected the hit and run), and he was said to have inspired the poem “Casey at
the Bat,” but he was also considered a big fat cheater. If the umpire wasn’t
looking, he would run from first to third by running across the diamond over
the pitcher’s mound. He once came into the game in the middle of a play (from a
drunken stupor on the bench) and announced “Kelly, Now Catching” so that he
could take the throw and tag out the runner at home plate. (A rule was
instituted after that banning something that nobody assumed needed to be
spelled out — No mid-play substitutions). They even wrote a song about him
called “Slide Kelly Slide.” But that’s not what
he was remembered for. Mike King Kelly was also a notorious drunk. Cap Anson
hired a Pinkerton to keep an eye on him. One time the game had to be held up
because Kelly was getting drunk with some fans in the box seats. Of course it
caught up to him. The White Stockings (now known as the Cubs) got rid of him by
selling him to Boston for $10,000 (which was a ton of money in those days). In
Boston, the drinking took its toll. He had to be sobered up before every game
in a Turkish bath. He lasted until 1893, but the last few years he was just a
shell of the player he once was…and he wasn’t even that old. He drank himself
to death the following year at the age of 36. 5000 fans came to see him at his
funeral. King Kelly was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945.
